Perhaps the greatest amount of information about the glorious past of the great Tartary has come down to us thanks to such a bright personality as Tamerlane. Without a doubt, he was an outstanding person, one of the greatest rulers in world history. That is why so many medieval authors have written about the period of his reign. And one of the most significant works, containing a great many amazing details about the socio-political and social structure of Tartary, as well as about the customs and manners of its inhabitants, was left by the ambassador of the King of Castile Ruy Gonzalez De Clavijo. But let's start in order.
Tamerlane. Christophan Del Altissimo. (1568)
There is a lot of information about the personality of this person, and, as is usually the case when it comes to those whose deeds have changed the course of history, conjectures and fabrications contained in this information are much more than truth. Take his name. In western Europe he is known as Tamerlane, in Russia he is called Timur. Reference books usually contain both of these names:
However, from the Arabic-language sources left to us by the descendants of Tamerlane-Timur himself, it turns out that his true lifetime name and title sounded like Tamurbek-Khan Ruler of Turan, Turkestan, Khorassan and further on the list of lands that were part of Great Tartary. Therefore, he was briefly called the Ruler of Great Tartary. The fact that today people with external features of the Mongoloid type live on these lands misleads not only the layman, but also orthodox historians.
Everyone is now convinced that Tamerlane was like the average Uzbek. And the Uzbeks themselves have no doubt that it is Tamerlane who is their distant ancestor and founder of the nation. But this is not the case either.
From the genealogy of the Great Khans, confirmed by chronicle sources, it is clear that the ancestor of the Uzbeks is another descendant of Chinggis Khan, Uzbek Khan. And, of course, he is not the father of all living Uzbeks, who were so named on a territorial basis.
Let's start from the end. Here is what is known from official sources about the death of the “Great Lame”: “As soon as the Egyptian Sultan and John VII (later co-ruler of Manuel II Palaeologus) stopped their resistance. Timur returned to Samarkand and immediately began to prepare for an expedition to China. He spoke at the end of December, but in Otrar on the Syr Darya river he fell ill and died on January 19, 1405 (other sources indicate a different date of death - 1405-18-02 - my comment).
Tamerlane's body was embalmed and sent in an ebony coffin to Samarkand, where he was buried in a magnificent mausoleum called Gur-Emir. Before his death, Timur divided his territories between his two surviving sons and grandsons. After years of war and enmity over the left will, the descendants of Tamerlane were united by the youngest son of the khan, Shahruk."
Promotional video:
The first thing that raises doubts is the different dating of Tamerlane's death. When trying to find more reliable information, you inevitably come across one single "true" source of all the myths about the "Uzbek" clone of Alexander the Great - the memoirs of Tamerlane himself, which he personally titled "Tamerlane, or Timur, the Great Emir." Sounds challenging, right? This contradicts the basic principles of the worldview inherent in the representatives of the Eastern civilization, which reveres modesty as one of the highest virtues. Asian etiquette prescribes in every possible way to praise your friends and even enemies, but not yourself.
The suspicion immediately arises that this "work" was entitled by a man who has the most distant concepts of the culture, customs and traditions of the East. And the validity of this suspicion is confirmed immediately, as soon as you ask yourself the question of who became the publisher of Tamerlane's memoirs. This is a certain John Herne Sanders.
I believe that this fact is already enough to not take seriously the “memoirs of the Great Emir”. One gets the impression that everything in this world was created by British and French Freemasons, intelligence agents. This is no longer surprising, not even annoying. Egyptology was invented by Champillon, Sumerology by Layard, Tamerlaneology by Sanders.
And if everything is extremely clear with the first two, then who Sanders is, nobody knows. There is fragmentary information that he was in the service of the King of Great Britain and regulated complex diplomatic issues in India and Persia. And it is he who is referred to as an authoritative specialist - "tamerlanologist".
Then it becomes clear that it is time to stop puzzling over the question of why the Uzbek leader disinterestedly saved the alien country of unfaithful Christian-Russ from the yoke of the Golden Horde and crushed it (the horde) utterly.
Now is the time to remember the legendary opening of Tamerlane's tomb in June 1941. I will not go into the description of all the "mystical" signs and strange events, they are probably known to everyone. This is me about the prophecies on the tomb and in the old book, that if you disturb Timur's ashes, then a terrible war will certainly break out. The tomb was opened on June 21, 1941, and on June 22, the next day, something happened that is known to every inhabitant of Russia and the republics of the former USSR.
Much more interesting is another "mystical" circumstance: the reasons that prompted Soviet scientists to open the tomb - this is where you need to start. On the one hand, everything is very clear, the goal was to study the historical material. On the other hand, what if it was done to refute or, conversely, to confirm historical myths? I think the main motive was just that - to prove to the whole world the greatness and antiquity of the great Uzbek people, which is part of the great Soviet people.
And then mysticism begins. Something went wrong. First, the clothes. The emir was dressed like a medieval Russian prince, the second - a light red beard and hair and fair skin. The famous anthropologist Gerasimov, a well-known specialist in the reconstruction of the appearance from skulls, was amazed: Tamerlane did not at all resemble those of his rare images that have come down to us. The fact is that it would be a stretch to call them portraits. They were written after the death of the Iron Lamer by Persian masters who had never seen the conqueror.
So later artists portrayed a typical representative of Central Asian peoples, completely forgetting that Timur was not a Mongol. He was a descendant of a distant relative of Genghis Khan, who was from a clan of great Mughals, or Moghulls, as Genghis Khan himself said. But the Moghulls have nothing to do with the Mongols, just as the Turana Katay province has nothing to do with modern China.
Outwardly, the Moguls did not differ in any way from the Slavs and Europeans. Everyone who managed to live in the USSR knows that in every union republic, local artists painted portraits of Lenin, endowing him with the outward features of their own people. So in Georgia, on large street posters, Lenin looked exactly like a Georgian, and in Kyrgyzstan, Lenin was portrayed, well, too "Mongolian". So it's all very clear. The story with the conclusion about the causes of death is not clear.
Reconstruction of Timur's appearance by the method of the anthropologist Gerasimov.
There are testimonies of contemporaries who claimed that Gerasimov had repeatedly stated orally that his first reconstruction of Tamerlane's appearance was not approved by the leadership, and he was "recommended" to bring the portrait to the generally accepted standard: Tamerlane is an Uzbek, a descendant of Genghis Khan. I had to make him a Mongoloid. Against a saber, a bare heel is a dubious argument.
Further, it is necessary to mention the undisguised facts of the study of the tomb. So, everyone knows that despite the advanced age of the deceased, he had fine strong teeth, very strong smooth bones. That is, Timur was a fairly tall (172 cm.), Strong, healthy man. Discovered injuries of the hand and kneecap could not play a fatal role. If so, what caused the death? The answer may lie in the fact that for some reason someone separated Timur's head from the body. It is clear that the members of the expedition would not disassemble the body for "spare parts" without good reason.
The first probable reason for this barbarity, desecration of the ashes is the replacement of the head. Perhaps the original white head was replaced by the head of a representative of the Mongoloid race. The second version - he was already in the coffin, headless. Then the question arises about the possible murder of Timur. And now the time has come to recall the long neglected "canard" about the causes of Timur's death.
I don’t even remember now the edition that published the “secret” confession of the pathologist who took part in the study of Tamerlane's body. According to rumors, allegedly, Tamerlane was shot with a firearm! I would not like to replicate false sensations, but what if it's true? Then such secrecy of this "archaeological enterprise" becomes clear.
Tamerlanes tartarorum imperator potentiss ira dei et terror orbis appei latus obiit anno 1402.
Is Tamerlane a Mongol? In my opinion, a very European-looking man, with a rod symbolizing Rarog, who is also the Slavic god Khors. One of the incarnations of Ra is a solar half-man, half-falcon. Perhaps the European artist did not know what "wild tartars" looked like?
But we translate the inscription from Latin into Russian:
"Tamerlane, the ruler of Tartaria, the master of the wrath of God and the forces of the Universe and the blessed country, was killed in 1402." The main word here is "Killed". It follows from the inscription that the author has the utmost respect for Tamerlane, and for sure, when creating the engraving, he relied on the famous lifetime images of Tamerlane, and not on his own fantasies. However, the number of famous portraits painted in the Middle Ages leaves no doubt that this is exactly what "The Lord of the Wrath of God …"
This is the reason for all the myths. Discarding later fantasies about Timur, glancing at this evidence with an unclouded glance, we come to the following conclusions:
- Tamerlane is the Ruler of Great Tartary, of which Russia was a part, therefore, the symbolism of the "Mongol" is quite understandable to the Russian people.
- Power is given to him by higher powers.
- In 402 from Jesus (I.402) he was killed. Possibly shot.
- Tamerlane, judging by the symbolism (Magendavid with a crescent), belonged to the same diaspora as Sultan Bayazid, who commanded the horde of Anatolia and ruled Constantinople. But let's not forget that the overwhelming number of the Russian aristocracy, including the own mother of Peter I, had the same symbols on the family crests.
But that's not all. Noteworthy is the sign on Tamerlane's cap. If he is the Ruler, then the version that this is an ordinary ornament does not stand up to criticism. On the headdresses of the monarchs there is always a symbol of the state religion.
Distinctive signs on headdresses are not the most ancient tradition, but firmly entrenched even before Tamerlane's accession to the throne. And it became law after the introduction of the uniform, which first appeared in the world in medieval Russia.
And the guardsmen wore a black uniform:
Almost the following sign was embroidered on their sleeves:
Read: LAW and ORDER.
Why did the boyars cry so much when the oprichnina was introduced? I believe that everything that we are told about Ivan the Terrible's National Guard is an analogue of the modern indignation of human rights defenders and dishonest officials. Hence the myths about the cruelty of the monarch.
Earlier, soldiers, tax collectors and other sovereign people dressed in the service, what they have to. Fashion, as such, appeared only after the emergence of manufactory production, so the attempts to study "ancient fashion" by modern scientists, who are trying to identify the differences in the national costumes of the Middle Ages, look pretty funny. There were no "national" costumes. Our ancestors treated clothes completely differently than we did, and therefore they dressed almost the same in Persipol, and Tobolsk, and in Moscow.
Any piece of clothing was strictly individual, sewn on a specific person, and putting on someone else's was just suicide. This meant taking on all the ailments and ailments of the real owner of the clothes. In addition, people understood that they could harm the owner of a dress that they would decide to try on. The clothes of each person were considered part of the spirit of its owner, that is why it was considered an honor to receive a fur coat from the royal shoulder. Thus, the person being gifted, as it were, was connected to the higher, the royal, and therefore to the divine. And vice versa. Anyone caught in the fact that he tried on the royal clothes, was considered as encroaching on the health and life of the monarch, and, accordingly, was executed on the place of execution.
And to imitate the clothes of others was considered the height of folly. Each nobleman tried to stand out with his clothes from both commoners and fellows in class, therefore, as many people existed, there were so many costumes. Of course, there were general tendencies, it is natural as well as the fact that all cars have round wheels.
That is why I think the surprised remarks of medieval travelers about the similarity of European and Russian costumes are absurd. We live in approximately the same climatic conditions, we have approximately the same level of technology, it is absolutely normal that all people of the white race dressed in the same way. Except for the details, of course. Even on the everyday clothes of the peasants there were individual signs in the form of embroidery. It is interesting that the main thing in the clothes was the belt. It had an individual ornament, and only the owner could touch it.
The belt was tied at the place where the chakra is located, called in Russia "hara" (hence the origin of the concept "character"), which is responsible for human life. That is why, they used to say "not sparing their belly", which was synonymous with the expression "not sparing their lives."
So maybe Tamerlane's headdress is just an ornament? He meant his own unique personality, which means he was unique, and there is no point in looking for similar images? May be. Or maybe not. Here is an engraving from the book of Adam Olearius with views of Russia:
I don't know if you can even call it crosses? This does not in any way fit with the objects that we see on the modern domes of modern religious buildings. Although in Western Ukraine there are still churches with such crosses. But the analogy with Tamerlane's "cockade" is too obvious to be a mere coincidence.
It remains only to figure out what all this can mean.
By and large, there is absolutely nothing to be surprised at. The tradition of decorating royal headdresses with crosses is not new.
However, it may well be that the very meaning of this is not completely clear to us. Yes, we found out that Tamerlane was depicted with a symbol of royal power - a cross, and the shape of the cross on his cap corresponds to the era in which the crosses on the temples were of exactly this shape, but questions remain. Were these Christian crosses? Did they have any connection with religion at all? And why did such hats replace those that were previously used?
At first glance, the most ordinary-looking documents are of great help in the reconstruction of true historical events. More information can be gleaned from a cookbook, for example, than from a dozen scientific papers written by the most eminent historians. It never occurred to destroy or counterfeit cookbooks. The same is true of the various traveler's notes that have not become widely known. In our digital age, publications have become open access that were not even considered as historical sources, but they often contain sensational information.
One of these, undoubtedly, is the report of Ruy Gonzalez De Clavijo, Ambassador of the King of Castile, on his journey to the court of the Ruler of Great Tartary Tamerlane in Samarkand. 1403-1406 from the incarnation of God the Word.
A very curious report that can be considered documentary, despite the fact that it was translated into Russian and published for the first time already at the end of the nineteenth century. Based on the well-known facts, about which today we already know with a high degree of certainty, in what exactly they were distorted, one can draw up a very realistic picture of the era in which the legendary Timur ruled Tartary.
The original version of the reconstruction of Tamerlane's appearance based on his remains, made by academician M. M. Gerasimov in 1941, but which was rejected by the leadership of the USSR Academy of Sciences, after which the typical facial features characteristic of modern Uzbeks were betrayed to Timur's appearance.
The report contains a lot of truly amazing information that characterizes the peculiarities of the history of the medieval Mediterranean and Asia Minor. When I began to study this work, the first thing that surprised me was that the official document, which meticulously recorded all dates, geographical names, names of not only nobles and priests, but even the captains of ships, was presented in a vivid, vivid literary language. Therefore, the document is perceived as an adventure novel in the spirit of R. Stevenson or J. Verne.
From the first pages, the reader is immersed in the outlandish world of the Middle Ages, and it is incredibly difficult to break away from reading, while, unlike “Treasure Island”, de Clavijo's Diary leaves no doubt about the authenticity of the events described. In great detail, with all the details and reference to dates, he describes his journey in such a way that a person who knows the geography of Eurasia well enough can trace the entire route of the embassy from Seville to Samarkand and back, without resorting to reconciliation with geographical maps.
First, the royal ambassador describes a trip to the Carrack in the Mediterranean. And unlike the officially accepted version about the properties of a ship of this type, it becomes clear that Spanish historians greatly exaggerated the achievements of their ancestors in shipbuilding and navigation. It is clear from the descriptions that the karraka is no different from the Russian plows or boats. Carraka was not adapted for travel on the seas and oceans, it is exclusively a coaster capable of moving within sight of the coastline only if there is a favorable wind, making "throws" from island to island.
The description of these islands attracts attention. Many of them at the beginning of the century had the remains of ancient buildings and at the same time were uninhabited. The names of the islands mostly coincide with modern ones, until travelers find themselves off the coast of Turkey. Further, all the place names have to be restored in order to understand which city or island we are talking about.
And here we come across the first great discovery. It turns out that the existence of which is not considered unconditional by historians to this day, at the beginning of the fifteenth century did not raise any questions. We are still looking for the "legendary" Troy, and De Clavijo describes it simply and casually. She is as real to him as his native Seville.
This is the place today:
By the way, now little has changed. There is a continuous ferry service between Tenio (now Bozcaada) and Ilion (Geyikli). Probably, in the past, large ships moored the island, and between the port and Troy there was communication only by boats and small ships. The island was a natural fort that protected the city from the sea from the attack of the enemy fleet.
A natural question arises: where did the ruins go? There is only one answer: they were dismantled for building materials. A common practice for builders. The Ambassador himself mentions in the Diary that Constantinople is being built at a rapid pace, and ships with marble and granite flock to the berths from many islands. Therefore, it is completely logical to assume that instead of chopping the material in a quarry, it was much easier to take it ready-made, especially since hundreds and thousands of finished products in the form of columns, blocks, and slabs are wasted in the open air.
So Schliemann "discovered" his Troy in the wrong place, and tourists in Turkey are taken to the wrong place. Well … Absolutely the same thing happens with us with the place of the Kulikovo battle. All scientists have already agreed that the Kulikovskoye field is a district of Moscow called Kulishki. There is a Donskoy Monastery, and Krasnaya Gorka, an oak grove in which an ambush regiment was hiding, but tourists are still taken to the Tula region, and in all textbooks no one is in a hurry to correct the mistake of 19th century historians.
The second question that needs to be resolved is how the seaside Troy got so far from the surf line? I suggest adding some water to the Mediterranean. Why? Because its level is constantly falling. On the frozen lines on the coastal land, it is perfectly visible at what mark the sea level was in what period of time. Since the days of the De Clavijo embassy, the sea level has dropped by several meters. And if the Trojan War actually took place thousands of years ago, then you can safely add 25 meters, and this is the picture:
Full hit! Geyikli is ideally becoming a seaside town! And the mountains behind, exactly as described in the Diary, and a vast bay, like Homer's.
Agree, it is very easy to imagine the city walls on this hill. And the moat in front of him was filled with water. It seems that further Troy can no longer be sought. One thing is a pity: no traces have survived, because Turkish peasants have been plowing the land there for centuries, and even an arrowhead cannot be found in it.
Until the nineteenth century, there were no states in the modern sense. The relationship had a pronounced criminal character on the principle "I cover you - you pay." Moreover, citizenship therefore has the root "tribute", which is not related to origin or location. A lot of castles on the territory of Turkey belonged to the Armenians, Greeks, Genoese and Venetians. But they paid tribute to Tamerlane, like the court of the Turkish sultan. It is now clear why Tamerlane named the largest peninsula in the Sea of Marmara from the Asian side “Turan”. This is colonization. The large country Turan, which stretched from the Bering Strait to the Urals, which was owned by Tamerlane, gave the name to the newly conquered land in Anatolia opposite the island of Mramorny, where there were quarries.
Then the embassy passed Sinop, which at that time was called Sinopol. And it arrived at Trebizond, which is now called Trobzon. There they were met by a chakatai, a messenger of Tamurbek. De Clavijo explains that in fact "Tamerlane" is a contemptuous nickname meaning "cripple, lame," and the real name of the Tsar, whom his subjects called him, was TAMUR (iron) BEK (Tsar) - Tamurbek.
And all the warriors from the native tribe of Tamurbek Khan were called chakatays. He himself was a Chakotay and brought his fellow tribesmen to the Samarkand kingdom from the north. More precisely, from the coast of the Caspian Sea, where to this day live chakatai and arbals, tribesmen of Tamerlane, fair-haired, white-skinned and blue-eyed. True, they themselves do not remember that they are descendants of the Moghulls. They are confident that they are Russian. There are no external differences.
The following is a detailed description of the overland travel in Kurdistan and the lands of the Turkomans (Nothing in this world changes)
But, by the way, after Tamurbek defeated Bayazet and conquered Turkey, the peoples of Kurdistan and southern Armenia breathed more freely, because in exchange for an acceptable tribute, they received freedom and the right to exist. If history develops in a spiral, then, probably, the Kurds again have hope for liberation from the Turkish yoke with the help of their neighbors from the east.
The next discovery for me was the description of the city of Bayazet. It would seem that what else can be learned about this city of military Russian glory, but no. See:
At first I could not understand what I was talking about, but only after I translated the leagues into kilometers (6 leagues - 39 kilometers), I was finally convinced that Bayazet was called "Kalmarin" in the time of Tamurbek.
And here is the castle, which was visited during the embassy of Ruy Gonzalez De Clavijo. Today it is called the Iskhak-Pash Palace.
The local knight tried to force the ambassadors to pay tribute, they say, the castle exists only due to the taxes of the passing merchants, to which the chakatai noticed that these were the guests of himself … The conflict was settled.
By the way, De Clavijo calls knights not only the owners of the castles, but also the chakatai - officers of the Tamurbek army.
During the trip, the ambassadors visited many castles, and from their descriptions their purpose and meaning becomes clear. It is generally accepted that these are exclusively fortifications. In fact, their military significance is greatly exaggerated. First of all, it is a house that can withstand the efforts of any "burglar-burglar". Therefore, “castle” and “castle” are cognate words. The castle is a storehouse of valuables, a reliable safe and a fortress for the owner. A very expensive pleasure available to very wealthy people who had something to protect from robbers. Its main purpose is to hold out until the arrival of reinforcements, the squads of the one to whom the tribute is paid.
A very curious fact: even at the time of the described embassy, wild wheat grew in abundance at the foot of Mount Ararat, which, according to De Clavijo, was completely unsuitable, because it did not have grains in the ears. Whatever one may say, this fact indicates that Noah's Ark, as a repository of DNA samples, could well exist in reality and contributed to the revival of life from Ararat.
And from Bayazet the expedition went to Azerbaijan and to the north of Persia, where they were met by the messenger of Tamurbek, who ordered them to go south to meet with the royal mission. And travelers were forced to get acquainted with the sights of Syria. On the way, sometimes amazing events happened to them. What, for example, is this:
Did you understand? A hundred years before the discovery of America in Azerbaijan and Persia, people calmly ate corn, and did not even suspect that it had not yet been "discovered". They did not even suspect that it was the Chinese who first invented silk and began to grow rice. The fact is that according to the testimony of the ambassadors, rice and barley were the main food products, both in Turkey and in Persia and Central Asia.
I immediately remembered that when I lived in a small seaside village not far from Baku, I was surprised that in each house of local residents one room was allocated for growing silkworms. Yes! In the same place, mulberry, or "here" as the Azerbaijanis call it, grows at every step! And the boys had such a responsibility around the house, every day to climb a tree and pick leaves for silkworm caterpillars.
What? Half an hour a day is not difficult. At the same time, you will eat enough berries. Then the leaves scattered into newspapers, over the netting of the armored bed, and hundreds of thousands of gluttonous green worms begin to actively chew this mass. Caterpillars grow by leaps and bounds. A week or two, and the silkworm pupae are ready. Then they were handed over to a silk-breeding state farm, and on this they had a significant extra income. Nothing changes. Azerbaijan was the world center for the production of silk fabrics, not Chin. Probably until the very moment the oil fields were opened.
In parallel with the description of the trip to Shiraz, De Clavijo tells in detail the story of Tamurbek himself, and in a picturesque form tells about all his exploits. Some of the details are striking. For example, I remembered an anecdote about how in a Jewish family a boy asks: "Grandpa, was there really nothing to eat during the war?"
- True granddaughters. There wasn’t even bread. I had to spread butter directly on the sausage.
Rui writes about the same: "In times of famine, the inhabitants were forced to eat only meat and sour milk." So that I am so hungry!
Indeed, the description of the food of ordinary Tartar subjects is breathtaking. Rice, barley, corn, melons, grapes, flat cakes, mare's milk with sugar, sour milk (here is kefir, and yogurt, and cottage cheese, and cheese, as I understand it), wine, and just mountains of meat. Horse meat and lamb in huge quantities, in a variety of dishes. Boiled, fried, steamed, salted, dried. In general, the Castilian ambassadors at least for the first time in their lives ate like a human during a business trip.
But then the travelers arrived in Shiraz, where a few days later they were joined by Tamurbek's mission to accompany them to Samarkand. Here, for the first time, I had identification difficulties with the geography of the campaign. Let's say Sultania and Orazania are parts of modern Iran and Syria. What then did he mean by "Little India"? And why is Hormuz a city if it is an island now?
Suppose that Ormuz broke away from the land. But what about India? According to all descriptions, India itself falls under this concept. Its capital is Delies. Tamurbek conquered it in a very original way: against fighting elephants, he released a herd of camels with burning bales of straw on their backs, and the elephants, terribly afraid of fire by nature, trampled the Indian army in panic, and ours won. But if so, what then is "Greater India"? Maybe the modern researcher I. Gusev is right when he claims that Greater India is America? Moreover, the presence of corn in this region makes us think about it again.
Then questions about the presence of traces of cocaine in the tissues of Egyptian mummies disappear by themselves. They did not fly on vimanas across the ocean. Cocaine was one of the spices, along with cinnamon and pepper, that merchants brought in from India Minor. Of course? will sadden fans of creativity Erich von Deniken, but what to do if in fact everything is much simpler and without the participation of aliens.
Okay. Let's go further. In parallel with a detailed description of the path from Shiraz to Orasania, which bordered on the Samarkand kingdom along the Amu Darya, De Clavijo continues to pay much attention to the description of the deeds of Tamurbek, about which the envoys told him. There is something to be horrified at. Perhaps this is part of the information war against Tamerlane, but hardly. Everything is described in too much detail.
For example, Timur's zeal for justice is striking. He himself, being a pagan, never touched either Christians, Muslims or Jews. For the time being. Until the Christians showed their deceitful greedy face.
During the war with Turkey, Greeks from the European part of Constantinople promised help and support to Tamurbek's army in exchange for loyalty to them in the future. But instead, they supplied Bayazit's army with a fleet. Tamurbek Bayazit defeated just brilliantly, in the best traditions of the Russian army, with small losses, defeating many times superior forces. And then he drove the captive Sultan with his son in a golden cage installed on a cart, like a little animal in a zoo.
But he did not forgive the vile Greeks and since then he persecuted Christians mercilessly. Just as the White Tartar tribe, who also betrayed him, did not forgive. In one of the castles they were surrounded by Tamurbek's squad, and they, seeing that they could not escape the reckoning, tried to pay off. Then the wise, just, but vindictive king, in order to save the lives of his soldiers, promised the traitors that if they themselves brought him money, he would not shed their blood. They left the castle.
- Well? I promised you that I will not shed your blood?
- I promised! - White tartars began to chorus.
- And I, unlike you, keep my word. Your blood will not be spilled. Bury them alive! - he ordered his "commander-in-chief of the Tartarguards."
And then a decree was issued stating that every subject of Tamurbek was obliged to kill all white tartars whom he met on the way. And if he does not kill, he will be killed himself. And the repression of the Timurov reform began. For several years, this people was completely exterminated. About six hundred thousand in total.
Rui recalls how they encountered four towers on their way, "so high that you can't throw a stone." Two still stood, and two collapsed. They were composed of the skulls of the White Tartars, held together with mud as mortar. Such were the customs in the fifteenth century.
Another interesting fact is described by De Clavijo. This is what I described in detail in the previous chapter - the presence of a logistics service in Tartary. Tamerlane significantly reformed it, and some details of this reform may serve as a clue to another mystery, what kind of mythical Mongols, together with the Tatars, "mocked unhappy Russia for three hundred years":
Thus, we are again convinced that "Tatar-Mongolia", in fact, is not Tataria and not at all Mongolia. Tartary - yes. Mogulia - yes! Just an analogue of the modern Russian Post.
Further we will focus on the "Iron Gates". Here the author most likely got confused. He confuses Derbent with the "Iron Gate" on the way from Bukhara to Samarkand. But not the point. Using the example of this passage, I highlighted with markers of different colors the keywords in the text in Russian, and the same words I highlighted in the original text. This clearly shows what sophistication historians went to to hide the truth about Tartary:
It is possible that I am as wrong as the translator who translated the book from Spanish. And "Derbent" has nothing to do with it, but "Darbante" is something, the meaning of which is lost, because there is no such word in the Spanish dictionary. And here is the original "Iron Gate", which, along with the Amu Darya, served as a natural defense of Samarkand from a sudden invasion from the west:
And now about the chakatai. My first thought was that this tribe could somehow be connected with Katai, who was in Siberian Tartary. Moreover, it is known that Tamurbek paid tribute to Katay for a long time until he took possession of him with the help of diplomacy.
But later another thought came up. It is possible that the author simply did not know how to spell the name of the tribe, and wrote it down by ear. And in fact, not "chakatai", but "chegodai". After all, this is one of the Slavic pagan nicknames, such as chelubey, nogai, mamai, run away, catch up, guess, etc. And Chegoday is in other words "Beggar" (give me something?). An indirect confirmation that such a version has the right to life is the following find:
In general, the statement that Tamerlane is the founder of the Timurid dynasty is not true, because he himself was a representative of the Chingizids, which means that all his descendants are also Chingizids.
It was also interesting to understand the origin of the toponym "Samarkand". In my opinion, too many city names contain the root "samar". This is biblical Samaria, and our megapolis on the Volga, Samara, and before the revolution Khanty-Mansiysk was called Samarov, and Samarkand itself, of course. We have forgotten the meaning of the word "samar". But the end of the "kand" fits well into the education system of toponyms in Tartary. These are Astrakh (k) an, and Tmu-cockroach, and many different "kans" and "vats" (Srednekan, Kadykchan) in the north-east of the country.
Perhaps all these endings are associated with the word "ham" or "khan". And we could have inherited from the Great Tartary. Surely, in the east, cities were named after their founders. Just as Prince Slovens founded Slovensk, and Prince Rus founded Russa (now Staraya Russa), so Belichan could have been the city of Bilyk Khan, and Kadykchan - Sadik Khan.
And further. Do not forget about how the Magi actually named the pagan Ivan the Terrible at birth:
Yes. Smaragd is his name. Almost SAMARA-gd. And this may not be a coincidence. Why? Because when describing Samarkand, the word "emerald" is repeated dozens of times. There were huge emeralds on Tamurbek's hat and on the diadem of his eldest wife. Clothes and even numerous palaces of Tamurbek and his relatives were decorated with emeralds. Therefore, I would venture to suggest that "Samara" and "Smara" are one and the same. Then it turns out that the person in the title picture is the wizard of the Emerald City?
But this is a retreat. Let's go back to medieval Samarkand.
The description of the splendor of this city makes your head spin. For Europeans, it was a miracle of miracles. They did not even suspect that what they previously considered a luxury, in Samarkand, even the poor are considered "jewelry".
Let me remind you that we were all taught from childhood that the peak of civilization was the magnificent Constantinople. But what a discrepancy … The author devoted several pages to the description of this Constantinople, of which only the temple of John the Baptist is remembered. And in order to express the shock of what he saw in the "wild steppes", it took him fifty pages. Is it strange? Obviously, historians are not telling us something.
Everything was perfect in Samarkand. Powerful fortresses, castles, temples, canals, pools in the courtyards of houses, thousands of fountains, and much, much more.
The travelers were amazed by the wealth of the city. Descriptions of feasts and holidays merge into one continuous series of grandeur and splendor. The Castilians have never seen so much wine and meat in one place in such a short period of time in their entire previous life. The description of the rites, traditions and customs of the tartare is noteworthy. One of them, at least, has come down to us in full. Drink until you collapse. And mountains of meat and tons of wine from the palaces were taken to the streets to distribute to ordinary townspeople. And the Festival in the palace has always become a public festivities.
Separately, I would like to say about the fight against corruption in the kingdom of Tamurbek. De Clavijo tells about one case when, during the absence of the Emperor in the capital, an official who remained I. O. Tsar, abused power and offended someone. As a result, I tried on a "hemp tie". More precisely, the paper one, because in Samarkand everyone wore a natural cotton dress. Probably the ropes were also made of cotton.
Another official was also hanged, who was convicted of embezzling horses from the giant Tamurbek herd. Moreover, capital punishment was always accompanied by confiscation in favor of the state treasury under Timur.
People of non-boyar origin were executed by beheading. It was scarier than death. By separating the head from the body, the executioner deprived the convict of something more important than just life. De Clavijo witnessed the trial and the cutting off of the heads of a shoemaker and a merchant, who unreasonably raised the price during the absence of the Tsar in the city. This is what I understand, an effective fight against monopolies!
And here's another little discovery. For those who think Homer invented the Amazons. Here, in black and white:
And now, about Baba Yaga:
Witch? No, Queen! And that was the name of one of Timur's eight wives. The youngest, and probably the most beautiful. That was how he was … Wizard of the Emerald City.
Modern finds of archaeologists confirm that Samarkand was actually an emerald city during the time of Tamerlane. Today these masterpieces are called “Emeralds of the Great Mughals. India.
The description of the ambassadors' return journey through Georgia is interesting, of course, but only from the point of view of a fiction writer. Too many dangers and severe trials fell to the lot of travelers. I was especially struck by the description of how they ended up in a snow captivity in the mountains of Georgia. Interestingly, today it happens that snow falls for several days and sweeps houses over the roofs?
Piszzoni is perhaps a profession, not a surname.
Feats of Tamerlane, and not quite feats
The story of the exploits of Tamurbek Khan would be incomplete if we had not turned to other sources telling about the epochal events that occurred during his reign. One of such sources is the document known as "Ivan Schiltberger's Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa from 1394 to 1427". I will omit the descriptions of Europe and Africa, since within the framework of this topic my goal was initially only to describe the past of our country in its most ancient period, when it was called Scythia, and then Tartaria.
Why does it make sense to dwell on this issue in more detail? The point is that this is also our story. An attempt by historians to separate the history of Russia from the history of Great Tartary led to what we have today. And we have a huge number of fellow citizens who question even the very existence of such a country in the past, not to mention the fact that Russia was its integral part.
This is the strategy aimed at splitting up a great country. Having shattered it into pieces in the past, it is very easy to shatter it in the present. Therefore, every inhabitant of all countries that until recently were a single state - the Soviet Union, it is vitally important to know their history in order not to repeat mistakes in the future.
Today one cannot find a person who would not know the name of Tamerlane. But try asking a bystander about what the great politician and military leader became famous for, and about ninety percent of the time, you will not hear anything beyond what was told in a commercial for a commercial bank. People will say that, they say, there was such a fierce Mongol who did nothing but conquer everyone, and at the same time did not spare either his own or strangers.
This is partly true. Timur was severe and merciless. But he was fair. He took care of his people, defended the peoples who submitted to him, and at the same time he was not bloodthirsty. This was the time when the death penalty was the most effective management tool. But Timur ruled not for the sake of his own ambitions, but for the good of the people, who considered him their father and protector. He even took the title of Khan shortly before his death.
Therefore, it is not enough to know that Tamerlane existed. You need to know well what exactly he did and how. We must fully realize that along with Ogus Khan, Chingis Khan, Batu Khan, Prophetic Oleg and Tsar Smaragd (Ivan the Terrible), Tamurbek Khan, we owe the existence of our modern country - Russia. So, let us turn to the facts stated by Ivan Shiltberger, which in many ways confirm and supplement the information presented by Abulgazi-Bayadur-Khan.
About the war of Tamerlane with the king-sultan
Upon his return from a happy campaign against Bayazit, Tamerlane began a war with the king-sultan, who ranks first among the pagan rulers. With an army of one million two hundred thousand people, he invaded the sultan's possessions and began a siege of the city of Galeb, which numbered up to four hundred thousand houses. It's hard to believe, but Schiltberger took such numbers from somewhere.
The commander of the besieged garrison made a sortie with eighty thousand men, but was forced to return and lost many soldiers. Four days later, Tamerlane took possession of the suburb and ordered to throw its inhabitants into the city ditch, and on them logs and manure so that this ditch was filled up in four places, although it had twelve fathoms deep. If this is true, and Tamerlane actually did this to innocent civilians, then undoubtedly he is one of the greatest villains of all times and peoples. However, one should not forget that the information war was not invented today or yesterday.
To this day, fables are written about all the great rulers of Tartaria, and this is normal. The more merit the ruler has, the more myths are added about his bloodlust. So the tales of the cruelty of Ivan the Terrible have long been exposed, but no one is in a hurry to rewrite textbooks. The same, I think, is the case with the myths about Tamerlane.
Then Tamerlane proceeded to another city, called Urum-Kola, which did not offer resistance, and to the inhabitants of which Tamerlane showed mercy. From there he went to the city of Aintab, whose garrison refused to obey the sovereign, and the city was taken after a nine-day siege. According to the customs of the war of those times, the unconquered city was given over to the plundering of the soldiers. After that the army moved to the city of Begesna, which fell after a fifteen-day siege, and where the garrison was left.
The mentioned cities were considered the main ones in Syria after Damascus, where Tamerlane then went. Upon learning of this, the king-sultan ordered to ask him to spare this city, or at least the temple that was in it, to which Tamerlane agreed. The temple in question was so large that it had forty gates on the outside. Inside, it was lit by twelve thousand lamps, which were lit on Fridays. On other days of the week, only nine thousand were lit. Among the lamps there were many gold and silver, dedicated to the kings-sultans and nobles.
Tamerlane laid siege to Damascus, and the Sultan sent from his capital Cairo, where he was, an army of twelve thousand people. Tamerlane, of course, defeated this detachment and sent in pursuit of the enemy soldiers who had escaped from the battlefield. But after each night they poisoned the water and the terrain before leaving, so due to heavy losses the chase had to be returned. This appears to be one of the oldest descriptions of the use of chemical weapons.
After several months of siege, Damascus fell. One of the cunning kadis fell on his face before the conqueror and asked to bargain pardon for himself and other nobles. Tamerlane pretended to believe the priest and allowed all those who, in the opinion of the qadi, were better than other civilians, to hide in the temple. When they took refuge in the temple, Tamerlane ordered to lock the gates from the outside and burn the traitors of his people. Such is natural selection. Is it cruel? - Yes! Is it fair? Again - Yes!
He also ordered his soldiers to each present him on the head of the enemy soldier, and after the three days used to carry out this order, ordered to erect three towers from these heads.
Then he went to another land called Shurki, which had no military garrison. The inhabitants of the city, famous for its spices and herbs, supplied the army with everything they needed, and Tamerlane, leaving garrisons in the conquered cities, returned to his lands.
Tamerlane's conquest of Babylon
Upon his return from the possessions of the king-sultan, Tamerlane with a million troops marched against Babylon.
By the way, if you think that the ancient city of Babylon is mythical, you are deeply mistaken. Saddam Hussein's palace is on the edge of this city.
View of Babylon from the former summer palace of Saddam Hussein. Photo by the US Navy. 2003 year.
Upon learning of his approach, the king left the city, leaving a garrison in it. After a siege that lasted a whole month, Tamerlane, who ordered the digging of mines under the wall, took possession of him and put him on fire. He ordered to sow barley on the ashes, for he swore that he would destroy the city completely, so that in the future no one could even find the place where Babylon stood. However, the citadel of Babylon, located on a high hill and surrounded by a moat filled with water, remained impregnable. It also contained the Sultan's treasury. Then Tamerlane ordered to divert water from the ditch, in which three lead chests were found filled with gold and silver, each two fathoms in length and one fathom in width.
The kings in this way hoped to save their treasures in the event of the capture of the city. Having ordered to take these chests, Tamerlane also took possession of the castle, where there were no more than fifteen people who were hanged. However, in the castle they also found four chests filled with gold, which were taken away by Tamerlane. Then, having seized three more cities, he, on the occasion of the onset of a sultry summer, had to leave this land.
Tamerlane's conquest of Little India
Upon returning to Samarkand, Tamerlane ordered all his subjects that after four months they were ready for a campaign in Little India, a distance of four months from his capital. Having set out on a campaign with an army of four hundred thousand, he had to pass through the waterless desert, which had a twenty-day transition. From there he arrived in a mountainous country, through which he made his way only in eight days with great difficulty, where he often had to tie camels and horses to boards in order to lower them from the mountains.
Schiltberger goes on to describe the mysterious valley "which was so dark that the soldiers could not see each other at noon." What it was, one can only guess now. However, most likely the matter is not in the valley itself, but in a certain natural phenomenon that coincided in time with the arrival of Tamerlane's troops in this area. Perhaps the cause of the long eclipse was a cloud of volcanic ash, or perhaps some more formidable natural phenomenon.
Then the army arrived in a three-day-long mountainous country, and from there it got to the plain where the capital of India Minor was located. Having set up his camp in this plain at the foot of a wooded mountain, Tamerlane ordered the messenger to tell the Ruler of the Indian capital: "Peace, Timur geldi", that is, "Surrender, sovereign Tamerlane has come."
The ruler chose to oppose Tamerlane with four hundred thousand warriors and forty elephants trained to fight, carrying a tower with ten archers on his back. Tamerlane came forward to meet him and would gladly begin the battle, but the horses did not want to go forward, because they were afraid of the elephants placed in front of the formation. Tamerlane retreated and arranged a council of war. Then one of his generals named Soliman Shah (a salty man, probably Suleiman, and he is also Solomon) advised to collect the required number of camels, load them with wood, set them on fire and send them to the fighting elephants of the Indians.
Tamerlane, following this advice, ordered twenty thousand camels to be prepared and the firewood laid on them to be lit. When they appeared at the sight of the enemy system with elephants, the latter, frightened by the fire and shouts of the camels, fled and were partially killed by the soldiers of Tamerlane, and partially captured as booty.
Tamerlane besieged the city for ten days. Then the king began negotiations with him and promised to pay two centners of Indian gold, which is better than Arabian gold. In addition, he gave him many more diamonds and promised to send thirty thousand auxiliary troops at his request. Upon the conclusion of peace on these conditions, the king remained in his state, and Tamerlane returned home with a hundred war elephants and riches received from the king of India Minor.
How the governor steals great treasures from Tamerlane
On his return from the campaign, Tamerlane sent one of his nobles named Shebak with a corps of ten thousand to the city of Sultania to bring back the five-year taxes stored there, collected in Persia and Armenia. Shebak, upon accepting this contribution, put it on a thousand carts and wrote about this to his friend, the ruler of Mazanderan, who did not hesitate to appear with a fifty thousand army, and together with his friend and with money returned to Mazanderan. Upon learning of this, Tamerlane sent a large army in pursuit of them, which, however, could not take Mazanderan because of the dense forests that covered it. Here we are once again convinced that the eastern part of the Caspian lowland was once covered with lush vegetation. Looking at these places today, it is hard to believe in it,but several medieval authors could not be so cruelly wrong at once.
Then Tamerlane sent seventy thousand more people with the order to pave his way through the forests. They, indeed, cut down the forest for a mile, but they won nothing, therefore they were recalled by the sovereign back to Samarkand. For some reason, Schiltberger is silent about the further fate of the stolen treasures. It is hard to believe that embezzlement on such a scale could go unpunished. And most likely, the author simply did not know the end of this incident.
How Tamerlane ordered to kill 7000 children
Then Tamerlane bloodlessly annexed the kingdom of Ispahan with the capital of the same name to his state. He treated the residents graciously and favorably. He left Ispahan, taking with him his king, Shahinshah, leaving a garrison of six thousand people in the city. But soon after the departure of Tamerlane's army, the inhabitants attacked his soldiers and killed everyone. Tamerlane had to return to Ispahan and offer the inhabitants peace on the condition that they dispatched twelve thousand riflemen to him. When these soldiers were sent to him, he ordered each of them to cut off their thumb on their hand and in this form sent them back to the city, which was soon taken by him by attack.
Gathering residents in the central square, he ordered to kill everyone over the age of fourteen, thus sparing those who were younger. The heads of those killed were piled up in towers in the center of the city. Then he ordered the women and children to be taken to the field outside the city and children under seven years old should be placed separately. Then he ordered the cavalry to trample them with the hooves of horses. They say that Tamerlane's own associates begged him on their knees not to do this. But he stood his ground and repeated the order, which, however, none of the soldiers could dare to carry out. Angry, Tamerlane himself ran into the children and said that he would like to know who would dare not follow him. The warriors were then forced to imitate his example and trample the children with the hooves of their horses. In total, they were counted about seven thousand.
Of course, this could be in reality, but in order to demonize a person, there is still no more effective method than to accuse her of murdering innocent children. The most famous of these legends was included in the Bible as a chilling tale of the beating of infants by King Herod. However, now we already understand where the "ears grow" from this legend. Herod did not give the order to destroy all the babies. He sent his archers in search of only one boy, who, having become an adult, could claim his throne, since he was his blood son from Mary, the wife of Herod, who was in exile before it became clear that she was pregnant with the monarch.
Tamerlane proposes to fight the Great Ham
Around the same time, the ruler of Cataya sent ambassadors to the court of Tamerlane with a demand to pay tribute for five years. Tamerlane sent the envoy back to Karakurum with the answer that he considered the khan not the supreme ruler, but his tributary, and that he would personally visit him. Then he ordered to notify all his subjects so that they prepare for the march to Turan, where he went with an army of eight hundred thousand people. After a month's march, he arrived in a desert that stretched for seventy days, but after a ten-day march, he had to return, losing many soldiers and animals due to the lack of water and the extremely cold climate of this country. Probably, Tamerlane planned to enter Katay through modern Tuva and Khakassia by the western route, along the Chinggis Khan Road. But in the northern steppes of modern Kazakhstan, the campaign had to be interrupted and stopped in Otrar, where Tamerlane was killed by conspirators who, no doubt, were bribed by the people of the Great Ham.
About the death of Tamerlane
This part of the narrative is more like a script for a television series. I quote from the author:
Author: kadykchanskiy